Guild Wars 2

Firebrand:
Mantras: range was too low, cone was AWFUL because it was too narrow. Increase range to be more mid, and widen the cone.
Axe: Meh, more stacks of bleeding/burn maybe
Tomes: I felt this was the focal point the pages were too limiting, abilities not powerful enough, and/or too long of a cooldown.
- I could live with the long cooldown if the abilities were more powerful or could be used more.
-I could live with current limit on use and power level if cooldown was significantly lower.

I’ll make another post on this, but can’t we all agree that Revenant as a whole needs a rework not just renegade. With Glint it is less apparent. Glint worked well with the energy system because it only effected upkeep and not totally draining the bar. But with renegade you don’t get a second legend that allows you access to use all your utilities and weapon skills as you could with the glint legend. Now the cracks are appearing. Redesign the whole class from the bottom up, try to figure out a way of attuning to legends that actually works, or just remove herald as an elite spec and let us use glint with renegade. The only skills people really use from the legends are the upkeep ones like shiros impossible odds, jalis’s hammers, every glint skill, Mallyx’s embrace the darkness, and the heal skills because they are the only ones we have. The whole class is a problem which stemmed from a cool idea.

Before this beta weekend, I was debating which of the three Expac bundles I wanted, After I’m debating if I want to buy the Expac at all.

deadeye: loved it, rifle not so much. It would be nice if moving or dodging broke kneel. Use ammo system to balance out the rifle if you choose to give us that mobility. If it’s still to strong with the allowed movement to break kneel for some reason, I have no problem with reducing the damage a bit, It is long range after all and the kneel skills are very strong.

Weaver: needs more damage, feels a bit under tuned. Would like it if it leaned more towards the physical damage side, but that’s just a flavor thing.

Hornet.6357:

Before this beta weekend, I was debating which of the three Expac bundles I wanted, After I’m debating if I want to buy the Expac at all.

Personally I think just having mounts for normal maps we already have will make the expansion worth it. Everything after that is a bonus. Although I would like to see the new classes be viable, thus some of the feedback. =)

Holo, Scourge and Weaver are very cool in different domains. Mirage is somewhat hard to get how effective one can be. Firebrand and Renegade seem nice but I only tried in lobby.

As a general comment, while the animation team did a good job for every single effect, the overlay of tons of them makes the reading of the game a bit too difficult.

I guess player were so excited about playing the demo they TL:DR Gaile Grays post and are giving +100 word review :P.

Rev still looses its utilities when it takes up a tactic banner in wvw

tooltips of many traits skills made no more sense as mechanics like petsswap, pet buffs or shroud related stuff does not exists with new elite anymore to name a few examples

condis are still way too strong in wvw and to extents in spvp too
I know its hard to balance them as you never know when they will be cleansed
maybe just disable dmg condis altogether to free up time to properly balance the rest
so there are no more options to kill players in 2 to 3 seconds in 1vs1 situations
not every one has good ping and the reaction time of a child if every class would not be stronger as core ranger that would be a good starting point for good fights that are not instantly over

I think Firebrand f2/f3 tomes need to get changed to 600 range and AoE… It’s just too annoying trying to set up a 300 range cone to heal and condi-clear. You literally have to have them be right on top of you at all times or have them be just a few steps away.

#pleasechangetheconetoaoe

Mirage:

• Buff Ambush attacks, give Phantasms unique Ambush attacks, introduce Ambush Shatters which still synergize with Shatter traits but are similar but different counterparts to their original shatters.

• Utilities involving Mirage Mirrors aren’t worth taking. Blink is probably better than Mirage Advance and Illusionary Ambush. False Oasis would be better if Mirage Mirrors were buffed.

• Some of the traits feel very niche/weak such as Self Deception, Riddle of Sand, Nomad’s Endurance, and Shards of Glass. Perhaps add swiftness to Speed of Sand. Needs synergy w/ Power.

• Axe: Axe 2 could use a short evade, Axe 3 has pathing issues. Phantasmal Axes could use another condition type and extra raw damage.

• Ambush: Shatters could become Ambush Shatters briefly during cloak; Ambush attacks were not as strong as they needed to be for their cost.

Fun to play Mirage though especially with Deception skills, but the effectiveness is questionable.

Scourge completely destroys any Revenant build, expecially Mallyx and Glint, since Punishment skills will convert any boon into 2 conditions that we can’t cleanse (or resist, since that boon is gone).
Similar things happen with Spellbreaker. Basically even core Revenant was indirectly nerfed.

I think the new specs would be more fun if we could use the HoT weapons with them. In other words, don’t lock the HoT weapons behind the traitline. Make those available with the new specs.

Short version? As others have said, hard to compare to PVE, when in a WvW environment, plus, I am a bunny in PvP.
WvW tho..I tested with my two main classes, Charrdian and Mez.
Firebrand was surprisingly good for zerg warfare, but definitely a backline type with the constant cone casting. Far different from the front/midline guardian up til now. As someone else said, the mantras would be better as a PBAoE centered on the caster. Cones are for coneheads. I would NEVER, EVER solo with that build in WvW. It seems to be solely for worshiping the zerg. Oh, and whats with the mantras resetting when you go for a swim?
The Mirage.. was.. OMG, awesomely fun to play. Killed two opposing players solo without hardly even trying, before being cut down by two others.. so.. yeah, 4v1.. Totally for a soloist roamer. I did not see much group utility, but maybe I missed it. And, condis.. CONDIS EVERYWHERE.

Spent most of my attention on Renegade from PvE perspective.
Expecting Kalla to not be worth it in fractals if summons can be CCed and killed (cf other pets in fractals). Heal skill could also do with some love. Kalla legend otherwise fine.
Regard citadel orders and Kalla’s Fervour as fundamentally flawed, have posted suggestion here https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/revenant/Citadel-Order-Suggestions/.
Traits fine.
Would advise shortbow F2/F3/F4 need a more specialised purpose than just damage given that the class already has Citadel Bombardment and Icerazor.

All new mechanics of the specialization seems interesting but, as a main ele player weaver give me a feeling of as it would be better as a long range “strategist” opposite to his original close combat design, a style that mixes speed and reflexes. Imho if is the only specialization that needs a utility skill to play as core class (and advice to use it for l2p), something is wrong.

Renegade has a pretty major bug. A cool down triggers on the Brutal Momentum trait that can end up actually DROPPING your crit chance when you get Fury. This thread details it: https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/support/bugs/Renegade-Brutal-Momentum/first#post6713146

Mirage has some seriously wierd mechanics and some backwards design choices.
Also seems to be lacking in condi clear, especially bad since condi seems to be the flavor of the expansion.

The mirror mechanic is interesting and i get where the idea comes from, but there needs to be more.. Something.. With the mirrors, they just dont do enough.. Maybe make them last longer and act as secondary illusions that can shatter but are stationary until picked up?

Ambush skill window is way too small.

Clones using ambush cant hit their targets properly, this applies to all the ambush skills, not just projectiles even though projectiles are incredibly easy to sidestep.

False Oasis is really weak and compared to some of the other heals, cant even compete.

Crystal Sands is super weak for a utility, maybe itll hit a stationary large hitbox golem, but it sure as hell wont hit players for any significant amount of damage.

Sand Through Glass has such a backwards design, whats the idea here? I teleport backwards to avoid damage, and then need to casually walk back into the fray to pick up a mirror for a second of evade? Makes zero sense.

Mirage Advance, its already a kittenty version of shadowstep, just adopt it completely and add stunbreak and remove cast time.

Jaunt doesnt have enough range.

Clone generation is hard in PvP, especially since Phantasms are pretty bad for Mirage, and you are forced to take certain traits just to not die to a single condi bomb.

Theres plenty of super synergies, shattering isnt suggested to avoid losing clones thatll be the main source of your damage, ambush skills that doesnt have any condi synergy, lacking OOC mobility.

Id say the main thing is the mirrors not having an impact, if they were treated as stationary illusions that last longer and mirror your shatters, that could be pretty cool, but right now they just tend to spawn in wierd places forcing you to charge your opponent if you want the mirror. Really, really wierd design.

I like the idea, but it needs alot of polish.

P.S. Power traits? Power is a thing people like to be able to run, but there are 0 traits that work with power.. And i see traits from each tier that can be removed or made baseline in order to slot in power traits.
Adding some power traits would also give you a reason to make the Sword and GS ambush skills actually impactful.

Scourge and holosmith were amazing. Weaver needs number tweaking. Mirage needs lots of rework (see: reddit Mirage feeds)

Spellbreaker.

Currently i feel like i bring nothing meaningful to the large scale wvw fights except “Winds of Disenchantment”. This spec needs a more sustained source of boonstrip in my opinion. Srsly, a scourge is doing better with boonhate with all this “Path of Corruption” bombs from the big shade.
Please, make a “Dispelling Force” to trigger regardless of stability on targets of disabling effects. This trait is very situational since it’s really difficult for warrior to land a successful CC effect on enemy blob with all this blocks and stability, but with this change a spellbreaker will get a really unique source of sustained boonstrip while his boonhate utilities are on cooldown.

Also, i think that the same solution should be used for “No Escape” trait, since currently it is extremely situational and do almost nothing when target is already stunned, except a very small root after stunbreak (if any).

“Aura Slicer” feels really slow comparing to similar skills. Can you please get rid of this annoying aftercast and speed up its leap animation a little bit?

Firebrand.

Mantras are really clunky in terms of wvw fights. I will not complain about cones, but a small cooldown between charges usage has ruined mantras for me. It is very difficult to use them in the middle of blob fights, when my squad mates got an insane condi bomb (that is a usual thing nowadays) on them i want to pop all my healing and condicleanse mantras charges ASAP, but here comes a cooldown between uses. So i think it would be nice to at least lower this delay to 1/4 second on utility and healing mantras (elite is fine i think).

Also, i don’t really like an axe symbol (without a daze trait), currently this is an only guardian’s symbol that don’t has a boon pulse for allies on it. Maybe a short quickness will do the trick (probably only once on cast, if pulsing will be too OP)? Since this boon sinergies really well with firebrand traits.

General

Barriers degeneration in combat should be slowed down significantly!

Weaver : Is unable to work as a melee class in Wvw since it can’t help allies around.
Add something so it can have its place in a groupe.
The barrier is for yourself, the clean is for yourself, it has weaker barrier than a scourge (and the scourge can pass the barrier up to 10 allies)
The way to play a weaver (probably hybrid) doesn’t allow you to have a proper barrier, the cd on attunements are too long, and if you want to play in a melee train, you just have to forget about it. Can’t assist, and thinking about barrier (by having a good toughness / vitality / healing power cap) doesn’t make you a good dps.
If only it had a way to remove barrier, it would be really appreciated in wvw, and could be a good counter to the massive barrier of the scourge.

Also, about the scourge, Jade Sea made a WvW raid with only scourge. We manage to gather 40+ people, so we decided to build golems.
We came to garrison, stack barrier (max is 50% of your health), and as we were all scourge, we manage to take no damage and enter inside the garrison. Our last golem managed to survive 45min inside the garrison WITH 5% HEALTH because you can stack barrier on golems (so the golem was at 150k barrier and couldn’t die under ac). We survive under 4 ACs and under 20people pewpewing from the walls. Everytime we fought against a zerg, we won cause F1 clean condi / debuff the ennemies / apply soft cc / Apply torment and burning cause traits / grants barrier to allies (up to 1.5k barrier with the F1, let’s not talk about the F3 or the Heal) UP TO 10 TARGETS. That means, if 40 scourge are playing together, you remove all buffs, apply way too much conditions, and support too much your team. We litteraly won every fight with only F1 F2 F3 F5 (self 5k barrier) our heal, and some aoe with our weapon. We even tried to play without weapon, and it worked as well (since it’s just your F skills and your heal)

The scourge is way too broken to be left as it is, being able to survive against everything with only scourge is kittened. The fights last 15 seconds, cause noone can survive that kind of power. Desolation and SFR will remember that

Redo everything, think about CD, think about numbers of target, think about some traits that can broke the scourge and give us a proper elite spec please, but don’t change it entirely, scourge is really fun to play (not like the weaver)

And that should be almost 100words… maybe.

Well hopefully every listening dev wasnt chased away but if anyone is still reading.

I tried out spellbreaker, holosmith, deadeye, and soulbeast for many hours this weekend. I am immediately happy that some classes were not upgrades to HoT builds but rather, new options. Now I primarily play wvw and it is my firm belief that all professions should be able to have a successful role in the mode.

Soulbeast: As a longbow ranger I found soul beast to be far too melee-based without proper tools to remain ranged as well as druid. I do think the class is a nice option for condition shortbow rangers. I wasnt quite sure what its wvw role would be as other classes seem to have better melee skills and strength. Changing the new stance utilities to pulse more like a revenent might be more fun for a ranger who wishes to contribute to larger groups/zergs. Ranger has historically been relegated to roaming and does little group support in non-raid settings.

Spellbreaker: An amazing rock to the paper and scissors of the condi vs power struggle. This class fits an entirely new and interesting role. I was impressed with its elegant and effective melee style. We desperately needed a counter to the condi creep meta and I think this build along with rev aiding in group resistence will help make a nice balance. Every profession and build should have its natural counters and some builds have become far too little risk for high reward. Spellbreaker helps shake things up in a good way.

Deadeye: Now this build was one I was looking forward to the most. Afterall rifles and pistols ate rarely used and seen. At first everything could gank me and I had to rely on larger groups to help me buy time. Eventually I stumbled onto the build that everyone found (apart from the condition/steal build haha). It requires you to take as much stealth and escape measures as humanly possible but lets you throw off massive single target damage in 2-5 shots. It was a lot of fun after the learning curve. However this build is not one that can quickly react to change its course of damage and has little to save itself in melee danger. Your best evade costs 5 initiative and therefore is never there to use after a burst. I was kind of hoping for a more fast paced alternative to the build to step right into the fight but its risky. I suppose better players could do it. Ultimately it’s a one-task pony, but it has its fun.

Holosmith: Holy nerfhammer threats batman. Im afraid holosmith might suffer the same fate as scrapper and start off super powerful, then get nerfed to the ground from complaints. You have a high powered and fast paced array of instant death at your hands. I heard some condition bursts exceeded absurd levels of damage for people experimenting. Now I was a rifle engi for a long while. Rifle was never updated to the new strength-creep of the modern metas in wvw. Recent changes to explosives and tools speclines have made a world of difference and I find myself contributing as the cc-maniac again in groups. It’s somewhat viable again allthough I think base damage for rifle 1 needs to be revisited as well as some kind of stability for engis best dps on rifle 5. But man, when I added holosmith it definitely felt like if my mediocre bs wasnt working i could just turn on the forge and wreck anything with complete button smashing ease. Now I found it has a weakness if you focus its minimal stab. So at least it has some counters but something about the complexity of it feels lacking. It’s a lot like mashing buttons in reapers shroud. It felt like a rotational bite was missing.

other builds i observed: I noticed scourge shielding in conjuction with ele healing made for indestructible combos in wvw. Not quite sure what all the contributing effects were but these groups could completely negate any glass damage or focused damage.

Anyway it was exciting as it was overwhelming. I’m no expert but this is my feedback so far.

Renegade

This from pvp look. I play Rev Main.

Bow: Clunky skills, To long animation (even with quickens), Not gone say much about survivability as its bow not a shield.

Skill 1: to low bleed stock/dmg/speed

Skill 2: miss a lot of time

Skill 3: hard to land, miss a lot, same of the arrows just despairer.

Skill 4: Wayyyyy to long animation need to predict where target will move and still there is 90% chance it will miss. Also bug if you use Shiros Impassible Odds with give Quicknes the skill with cast x2 times after 1 sec of delay.

Skill 5: Like it but its one line projectile with ignores geo data so it will not hit target above or bellow me. Also cc and burn super short I guess that why its short-bow as all its do its short….

I think that all F skill should not have energy cost but increased CD to balance it.

F2: Hardly was using it, Just because Kalla buff its in all traits so auto attack give you all the time max stock. No point using it to gain 5 might or 10 (depends on trait) just to waist 20 energy with can be spend much better way.

F3: OMG where to start and where to end in pvp this skill is soooo clunky first the animation is soooo long its no way you gone predict where your target gone be. Next sec I did one pvp match just focusing on Citadel Bombardment, My target was moving in one line to side so I decide to put skill right next to him so he will walk in to it the funny thing is that he just out run the skill with side walk…(no speed buff). Next main problem of this skill is 40 energy there is no way ever ever EVER that you will have 40 free energy to spend on clunky skill that you can miss in fight against other class that focusing you with dps. I see same of the usage in pve or vs bot players that sit in one place growing potato’s

F4: Not real see the point of this skill for reverent as its heavy focus on switching between legends and weapons with have pretty low cds thx to evil energy system. I see use in pve with group but not really in pvp where you have to be fast and not waist energy on staff that make not much difference.

Overall F skill (100% should have no energy cost) F3 Need adjustments with speed. F2 could clean cond for each kalla fervour with will be big bonus for reverent that lack good clean in expansion where all class focus on cond dmg.

Utiltys: Main problem they are all NPC base can be kill/cc/pull/push. Energy I see why each have at least half of energy usage so we cant spam all tree at once but why not if you make it in to NPC form. Limiting player with area of using. For my main problem was costing time what-up with all that delay on ALL skills.

Healing: To low for about of dmg we get from same classes even when he have x2 heal skills to use from 2 legends. Heal Pulse irrelevant just force you to stay in area where you get more focus on and burst . Dmg reduce from cond don’t make difference with amount you get overall. No point of brake stun if casting take at last 1 sec + you need point location of cost.

Uti1: Hardly used in pvp there is no way I will waist half energy just to put npc with short area effect that add same extra bleed just to pray that my ally walk in it or I force my brain to stay in it just so enemy player can burst me. Will be good to increase size of this skill at list x2 so its bonus on twice of it, one there is bigger distance to npc to be kill second give much more mobility for your self and lets ally benefits from large area effect.

Uti2: Way to easy to move away from its effect. The pulse block skills for 1 sec every 2sec. Will add same immobilization cripple/chill or even root with really well can synergy with it.

Uti3: Misleading name of skill that all player thinks…. (remove cripple, add chill = stop cry)

Elita : Will change up-keep to one time energy cost. Don’t really any using in pvp as I need my energy to spend on weapon skills then on buff that slightly increase dmg. Don’t synergy well with other skills of kalla that have already huge cost on energy. This skill says : ally get buff you can just spam skill 1 so much fun…

Fix idea :
Faster Animation / Cast
F skill No energy / Increase CD
NPC change in Walls and increase area of effects at least twice of size with will point out it specialization cause at the moment there is non beside buff.

There is still lots to write but already writing this two hours :/

Sorry for lots of criticism and I know that its hard to balance everything and make every one happy.

Players we’re nice/excited enough to take the initiative to creative class specific feedback threads in their respective forums.

Rather than create a mess of back and forth between different classes, your team/devs should go look at more comprehensive feedback that’s already been provided…

Deadeye – If malice only affects the marked target why are the malice marks on my hud and not incorporated into the mark itself? The target gets malice the thief gets a stolen item. This needs to be visually clear. I still don’t like the idea of kneeling but it sounds like other players have adjusted to the clumsiness of it. Maybe I can too but I just can’t see it working in fractals with all the red rings of death and all but again maybe that’s ok.

The only elites I really spent adequate time with were Weaver, Mirage, Renegade, and Spellbreaker. They were all fun to play once I properly learned their mechanics.

I think one of the reasons some players feel the PoF elites are underwhelming is because the skill floors are much higher than the HoT elites. It didn’t help that they also had to fight those HoT elites while learning, since there was no PvE test area.

With that in mind, I think making the PoF elites easier to play would be a good idea. Here are a few suggestions based on my experiences.

Weaver – Accessing offhand skills seemed to be a problem that a lot of players had. Unravel exists purely as a bandage solution to this issue, so like others have suggested I think Unravel should be converted to a fifth mechanic bar skill.

Mirage – Illusions need more durability to actually be able to use some of the new skills. The Mirage Mirrors should last longer, you can’t reach them in any natural way while you’re actively fighting.

Renegade – It’d be a lot easier to play if the utilities and mechanic bars skills didn’t use so much energy. Also I don’t like that the warband summons are vulnerable to cc, seems like unnecessary punishment when they cost so much to use.

Spellbreaker – Can’t think of anything, seems like it’s pretty good already. I’m disappointed though that the Dagger #2 skill doesn’t use ammo mechanics like Mirage’s Axe #2.

Loved the Deadeye but would have liked to try it in PvE.

For the Weaver I’d say give attunement swap an ammo count so that you can rapidly double switch attunement to use the same double attunement or choose to mix them. If you use both charges at one then it can have a little longer cooldown.

For firebrand I would like to see these changes.

1: Mantras should be changed to a radius instead of a cone effect. The reasoning behind this would be that you would have to physically turn your Character around to help bail out your team mates.
2: Tomes having a cast time where if you get cc’d or dodge roll out of the the cast it goes on instant cool down for the full Duration. In my opinion tomes should be instant like attunements on Elementalists.
3: Renewed Focus should work with the tomes and reset them.
4:Indomitable Courage should also work with the tomes for extra stability. Because Core guardian has instant access to a stun break for all party members in range.

Seems how this a support spec it should be able to surpass the support a core guardian should give. Tried to keep it under 100 words

Soulbeast needs to have the aura removed completely, if I want an aura I will earn one or buy one, forcing one on me ruins any theme I maybe planning for that character, I find this really annoying.

Soulbeast also needs pet swap while in beastmode and for beastmode swoop to be fixed, the tooltip says 1200 range, it does more like 900 and seems to slow down at the end of it making it feel clunky.

Soulbeast should have access to pet f2 skills while in beast mode, I realise that WHEN you put pet swap back in to beastmode it will take the f4 skill slot, so then there will be no available spot for the pet f2, but what I do suggest is that you make the beastmode f1 and f2 skills act like utilitys do, where you can choose from a pool of skills, basically allow f1 and f2 to select any skill we want from the pets skills including the pet f2, and while you are at it open up the pet family skills into that pool, so that if I use a raven I have access to other bird f2’s such as chill instead of blind, I’m sick of being forced into using pets I do not want to use for their f2.

Soulbeasts beastmode beast skills are lackluster, I mean who on earth wants to use bite while in beastmode? it’s pathetic to the point of being insulting, its an absolute waste of a f key.

Deadeye, the kneel skill needs a rework, after kneeling if I press a direction key it should break me out of kneel and move, I’m sorry that you are so happy with yourselves for creating dodge while in kneel, but it feels very clunky and was the reason I stopped playing it after about 30 mins.

You have left yourselves only 1 month to fix these problems and all the others that are in this thread, of which there are a gazillion, from what I can see you are not even close to being finished, there is no chance you will get this poilished in time for release, so I have to say I feel a great sense of anti climax after this weekend, I was very excited for the expac, but now I see the reality is that these elites are no where near finished.

Clownmug.8357:

The only elites I really spent adequate time with were Weaver, Mirage, Renegade, and Spellbreaker. They were all fun to play once I properly learned their mechanics.

I think one of the reasons some players feel the PoF elites are underwhelming is because the skill floors are much higher than the HoT elites. It didn’t help that they also had to fight those HoT elites while learning, since there was no PvE test area.

With that in mind, I think making the PoF elites easier to play would be a good idea. Here are a few suggestions based on my experiences.

Weaver – Accessing offhand skills seemed to be a problem that a lot of players had. Unravel exists purely as a bandage solution to this issue, so like others have suggested I think Unravel should be converted to a fifth mechanic bar skill.

Mirage – Illusions need more durability to actually be able to use some of the new skills. The Mirage Mirrors should last longer, you can’t reach them in any natural way while you’re actively fighting.

Renegade – It’d be a lot easier to play if the utilities and mechanic bars skills didn’t use so much energy. Also I don’t like that the warband summons are vulnerable to cc, seems like unnecessary punishment when they cost so much to use.

Spellbreaker – Can’t think of anything, seems like it’s pretty good already. I’m disappointed though that the Dagger #2 skill doesn’t use ammo mechanics like Mirage’s Axe #2.

Oh man I could not agree more about the PvE thing. It was a huge mistake to have no PvE testing beds to get acquainted and/or duel with friends. The dueling in pvp is chaos and stats are entirely different. I suppose if you were savvy enough you could run up to the wvw centaur camp or hits some bristlebacks in the desert borderlands, but it needed more PvE testing. Luckily it will all be released soon and it was kind of anet to do this at all.

Renegades utilities are too weak, many builds will end up not even using Kalla in her current state. The energy costs are too large across the board, and if they’re cc’d they just stop functioning and eventually die. The heal is also pretty bad and will never save anyone (which is a huge choice to make over Heralds heal). The traits also offer very little sustain which will make it a rough choice over Herald if the utilities dont even work. Also there is no Chill anywhere in this spec, which is strange cause you’d probably run Corruption with this.

100 words:
I think weaver will be cool for intricate rotations in PVE, but never in PVP. It cannot react to the opponent, because of GCD and swap mechanics.

Explanation:
- As a weaver you will always be in GCD from swapping, not being able to swap when needed
- You can only react with skill 2 even after GCD, since 1 is just autoattack and all others are dependend on which attunement you come from. Making the reaction practically RNG based.

Playing weaver has a huuuuge opportunity cost in PVP, that not in the least made up by traits and extra skills (+ DPS of the sword is abysmal for the lowest range ele-weapon…)

I’m deeply disappointed in Mirage. The teleports do not follow there targets. So, you end up in the wrong place most of the time. The projectile Ambushes miss most of the time. Axe has very little useful defensive value.

Mirror is supposed to be a fixed weakness bomb, I get that.. but it simply doesn’t work.

Mirage is dependent on clones, a resource that is very hard to preserve, especially with Axe. We need clone death traits back if ANET is going to tie most of our power to clones.

I would love to have given feedback, but I don’t PvP or WvW, and I have no idea how to play those game modes or how I would go about testing for them. I am strictly an open world player and would have very much appreciated the opportunity to demo test the new specializations in that context. Can’t say I understand why we weren’t given given the opportunity to test them in a PvE environment, unless they are are PvP only specializations. That would be really sad if that were the case.

Great Overall.

Tried Mostly Soulbeast and Weaver.

SoulBeast :
Super Fun to play, but feels really clunky. Dagger is slow and as low damage output (power and condition). There was a lot of bugs/glitchs with trait and skill. Stance were not as impressive as I tough they would be. Animation are great (at least for me). Everything doesn’t seem to synergize well together, at least not as well as the Weaver. Not being able to swap pet in beastmode made it weird to play, but maybe it’s because I’m not used to it yet.

Weaver :
Really really fluid gameplay, a little bit slower than expected, but its alright. I wasn’t able to do as much damage as Tempest or core Elementalist, maybe because I’m not used to it.Trait synergize well together, with new skill, new Stance and with others trait line too. Stance in general are good, maybe not as good as cantrip, but still. Strangely I was doing better in 1v1 with the staff.

I’m going to focus on the weaker elites that I feel need the most love to try keep to the 100 words(sorry it’s hard), but I want to mention that I love the holosmith and deadeye. They are well designed with strong trait options that provide variety and help open options with existing weapons that previously did not see a lot of use (engi rifle and thief p/p).

Mirage-Most disappointing elite for me because it had the weakest execution on a lot of the ideas . The GS ambush looks amazing, but it is so sad that it hits like a wet noodle. Ambushes need to be stronger (especially gs with no added utility) and clone ambushes should be baseline.

Also, the deception skills feel very weak and I struggled to find a use for any of them including the elite (not exaggerating). The spec really needs some power options and the entire trait line needs work to be useful. Dodging breaks stun was one of the only traits I found useful. With Holosmith, I struggle to pick a trait because there are so many good options, but with mirage I just pick what I think is the least bad. I like the idea of the mirage and the mechanics are interesting, but it needs a lot of attention to bring it to a usable level.

Soul beast/Spellbreaker-I’m combining these two because I have similar comments for both and the dagger main hand is the biggest issue I have between both. Both elites have a good amount of synergy with current builds and the utility skills seem effective. However, the traits and abilities feel like they need some buffs to be on par with current options (beastmode, heal on death and spellbreaker tether are a few that come to mind).

Daggers feel weak for both of these elites. They both suffer from being low damage, high sustain dps weapons that are ineffective in pvp. It is incredibly hard to stick to a target with the amount of cc that is thrown around currently. Increased mobility and attack speed could help alleviate the issue and some sources of stability. Playing both elites with daggers was the most frustrating experience I had over the preview weekend. They are too reliant on autos to be viable with the snares and mobility available to the class. A passive movespeed that is maintained in combat could be interesting to see on either, but seems more fitting on a spell breaker. I would love to see an ammo based slashing lunge added to the soulbeast dagger kit. Also, a blurred frenzy like skill with mobility would be fun to use.

Mirage – the clones need something so they are not instantly destroyed in a PvP environment. Perhaps share HP with the Mesmer? (Balance by only take AOE damage once, and SoIllusions only affects Phantasms?)

DeadEye – in the chaos of a non 1v1 environment, too much ranged damage too fast (from stealth even!) before you can even react to the unseen threat. Thats even before considering the tracer from Death’s Judgment. DeadEye is fine 1v1.

Tried Scourge, Spellbreaker, Deadeye and Firebrand.

The good: Scourge, spellbreaker and firebrand have fun profession mechanics, and traits, although I think firebrand tomes arent very flexible, and need some cast time adjustments.

The bad: Deadeye feels extremely uninspired. The most optimal playstyle often involves spamming one attack.

The ugly: As much as I enjoyed this weekend, all 4 classes have extremely lacklustre utility skills. The elite skills were good, but the utility skills were either boring (scourge, deadeye) or just too underpowered (spellbreaker, firebrand)

I feel like the self boon removal idea on spellbreaker needs more work, theres some real potential to make it feel like a GW1 dervish, in gameplay.

The new elite training path of major > master > grandmaster > healing > utility etc is much better than the HoT structure, but on Soulbeast at least the grandmaster for the middle line is Leader of the Pack, which is completely useless until you unlock the healing/utility stuff that comes after it.

Its not a huge deal, and still better than the HoT order, but it’d be nice if the middle line on each spec held the traits that have the least reliance on utilities etc if those are gonna be the ones that unlock first. Otherwise we’re still gonna end up in a situation where the spec doesn’t feel useful until we’ve unlocked the whole path.

AsheR.1687:

I would love to see an ammo based slashing lunge added to the soulbeast dagger kit.

Umm… Soulbeast Dagger 3 is exactly this.

My big problem with Soulbeast dagger is the green bladetrail that wrecks Fashion Wars. I wouldn’t mind it on the effects that poison, but I like my weapons to be plain, please, so I can mix them with any color combination I want. (I also hate the fartshroud for this reason, in addition to it being a fartshroud).

Just a short feedback for the Soulbeast:

- beastmode feels good, fun and useful
- daggers aren’t “agile” enough, its usage feels very mediocre
- stances are a disappointment for me, they doesn’t feel like an actual stance (permanent buff until the stance is changed or cancelled), it is just a renamed temporal buff as any other similar skill before. Lower but permanent stance buff feels more right for me and more relevant to the term “stance”.
- traits seems to be pretty specific and oriented towards a specific build, but why not

Mirage is a cool concept with bad execution. To start with, it seems to be very clone-centric while failing to provide significant survivability for these fragile guys. The ambushes aren’t significant enough to feel like they make a real difference. I enjoyed the sword ambush, however it doesn’t trigger daze or interrupt traits when a clone interrupts with it. Ambushed should synergize with each weapon’s playstyle while being something that isn’t just an improved Auto. GS ambush is the worst, synergizing with nothing and being fairly worthless. Mirage traits don’t seem to really synergize with core mesmer nor do they alter the aspects of Mirage. In comparison, Chrono can be traited to make Wells give Alacrity, to change the nature of phantasms to shatter twice, and so forth. On Mirage, we don’t have manu options that fundementally define how you use Mirage. Infinite Horizon is the exception, but it should either be baseline or have GM traits that can compete with it. Mirrors are unreliable and short and inconvenient. If we had more access with, say, an F5 that shatters our illusions into Mirrors, that’d go a long way. Should also double Cloak duration to open the window for Ambushes.

The Traitline lacks focus, with traits that are so weak that builds tend to just end up within the same genre, lacking diversity. Punishment, interrution/control, and reversal are the thematic principles of Mesmer. Mirage lacks these principles completely.

Scourge
A lot of the OP damage that PvP players seem to be experiencing at the moment seems to be coming from Dhuumfire triggering off all F skills rather than just F1. Hopefully this is a bug and gets fixed so Scourge doesn’t suffer further nerfs in other areas.

The Ammo mechanic on Shades seemed arcane and unwieldy. I feel that the One-Big-Shade from Sand Savant seems to be a vast improvement over the three smaller ones, especially with the added cooldown and target cap bonus. This disappoints me because I was looking forward to making a burn synergy build.

Shades feel clunky and awkward, with big cooldowns and no mobility. I think turrets (Shades) are a poor mechanic in a game where the thief, in particular, is capable of such incredible mobility. It seems somewhat pointless in open-field WvW, where I spend the vast majority of my time.

I think the Shades will get used, but only situationally, i.e. attacking walls or choke points. In open field they can be avoided effortlessly.

For 1v1 non-point fights, the scourge seems somewhat squishy and although the two new movement abilities are very welcome (thanks, please don’t nerf Sand Swell because of the bug), I doubt they’re going to suffice in terms of survivability, particularly considering that barrier is an active defence and is extraordinarily temporary.

It feels like Scourge was specifically built for Conquest PvP and much of the static gameplay in PvE. In the flowing battlefields of WvW, Scourge will probably melt faster than an ice lolly in the desert.

I really loved deadeye but I feel like some tweaks need to be made to kneel. Perhaps make it slow you to 50% speed or something instead of being completely immobile.I also feel like the standing skills should have the 1500 range as it feels a little weird that a rifle suddenly shoots further because you took a knee.

Spellbreaker dagger damage needs massive buffs. The utilities feel like I will never take or use them, but then I don’t use berserker utilities either so guess that’s not that big a deal?

One thing that stood out were some of the new weapon attack animations for Soulbeast, Mirage, and Firebrand. It’s like the animators went out of their way to slow down and cut up current animations just to make them look different. The result: Slow, clunky, and too much aftercast times.

I’m a PvE player, so this is based on my time on the golem in the mysts and the rare NPC that I could get access to when the crowds died down. It would have been nice to get a PvE instance to try these out in.

I found that the Firebrand seemed slow and clunky, but had nice animations. I didn’t like the tomes mechanic and the cool downs were way too long. Axe main hand seemed to be underpowered. Unless there are some significant buffs/changes, I don’t foresee switching to it.

Spellbreaker had interesting mechanics, but I don’t know how useful it will be when actually using it. Mainhand dagger stacks a lot of might, but seemed a tad underpowered. I hope it outperforms the Berserker condi meta build because I’d love to switch, and will just have to wait and see on it.

I didn’t like the Deadeye at all, but I am not a fan of sniper style gameplay so this is no surprise. I typically play an evasion thief, so the kneel/root felt very out of place. I will not be changing my DD condi Daredevil for this.

The Weaver has potential, but the cool down on attunement switching has to change. It feels very clunky with no flow to it. Also, the sword is underpowered. I actually had better luck switching out the main hand sword to dagger, running DD. Finally, the barrier mechanic decays too quickly and needs to be much larger to have any effect. Great animations, beautiful actually! I am hopeful that a Weaver build will be viable, because I’d love to play it.

Tried the Soulbeast briefly, but it didn’t grab me. Also, the animation of the aura was not appealing to me at all. I will not be playing one.

The Holosmith was a big surprise! Great animations and design theme. I really want to commend the team that worked on this spec! This is the Asura-themed melee profession that I always hoped we’d get. Very much looking forward to playing it and I may have found my new main character. I was on the fence about the expansion before, but this spec sold me on it!

I didn’t try Necro, Revenant, or Mesmer.

One final comment, please get rid of the unidentified loot. I find the whole concept extremely off putting!

Just a casual, open world PVEer who mains Guardian and Revenant. I dabbled with the rest and definitely enjoyed Holosmith and Deadeye of what little I played them.

Firebrand:

Beautiful animation. I like the new, more complex feel of the spec, since Guardian/Dragonhunter are pretty straightforward. Love that we’re getting a worthwhile condi spec. Wished we could change the name to Loremaster.

Biggest issue was with the small cone size on the skills (making support much less useful) and the tome cast time/cooldown (making it too unreactive and clunky) . Non-Firebrand Virtue traits were buggy with Tomes and need to be looked at. I didn’t like having to wait for one mantra to charge before charging the next one when I’m setting them up for the beginning of a battle.

Renegade:

Ugh. Let’s get started:
1) Shortbow: Damage is pretty weak. It needs to either hit harder or have some utility added to it. Also, cooldowns are a bit too long. Wish it synergized a little more with Mallyx traits. I may take it, just because it’s the only other range option for Hammer. But it’s not super fun to play.
2) Utilities: The energy usage is insane on these skills. One utility and a couple weapon skills and I have to swap legends to not just stay on auto-attack. Animation is OK, wish it was more varied. Icerazor’s Ire should have chill. Hate that it is hittable, CCable. Bugged out on spawning in WVW several times. Also wish it had better range. Maybe thinking of not even using it. (Also, could we please get some other legends for underwater!)
3) F1-3 Skills: Could barely use these since I kept running out of energy with the Utilities. (Energy is a huge design issue still with the Revenant as other have stated. It works well with Herald but with other legends, not so much. Especially with other weapon skills also using energy.)

Loved Mirage, pretty solid conceptually. Requires mostly various numbers adjustments throughout the specialization and its mechanics to improve functionality and fluidity.

Further increase endurance generation or supply and/or integrate Mirage Mirror inherently (F5?) to improve access to and better enable Mirage Cloak. Increase window of Ambush availability. Deceptions need number tweaks to improve functionality. Axe 3 and Illusionary Ambush need to be made to play well with verticality (dramatically decrease distance between mesmer and illusions to their target post shadow step?).

Overall needs to better enable its role to differentiate itself from core Mesmer and Chronomancer. If it is about damage burst/ambush, help make that more apparent.

Two suggestions for firebrand. This comes from a WvW perspective.

1. Tomes need to be insta-cast. It is clunky how they are currently set up.
2. Mantra need to be AOE based vs in a cone in the front. Their range should also be 600.

Fix those two items and guard will be a viable support option in WvW.